An Angel For Christmas Part 22

Shayne set his arm around her shoulders and led her back to the snowmobile. "It's good that we didn't find them, you know that, right?" Shayne asked her.

She imagined Gabe at the bottom of the mountain, crushed, mangled and bleeding.

"Yes," she said huskily. Silently, she crawled on the snowmobile behind him.

"Hey!" he said.

"Yeah?"

"The lights are back on at the tavern," he said.

"So they are."

Bobby wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything as beautiful as his mother's look of joy when he and Cindy stumbled into the tavern.

Ah, but maybe there was. It was Genevieve's face as she saw her mother.

"Mommy!" she cried. Delight in her voice. "Oh, Mommy!"

Genevieve threw herself against Cindy, who nearly fell over.

"Careful!" Connor cried. And then he was sobbing, too.

"I knew that Daddy would find you," Genevieve said. "I knew that he would!"

"I don't know how he even knew that I was out there!" Cindy said, accepting hugs from all around.

Bobby found himself crushed in a ferocious bear hug by his mother, and then his father. And he wondered if the way that his father looked at him with such pride and love wasn't one of the best gifts he'd ever received at Christmas.

Then his mother cried out, "Bobby, you're hurt!"

"Just a sore leg. My brother will fix it."

Stacy drew back, concern in her eyes again. "They're not here. Shayne and Morwenna. Where are they?"

Then he and Cindy tried to explain, each interrupting one another to add a detail.

"But-but they went to try to help Gabe. Against DeFeo!" his mother said, fear in her voice.

"They're on the snowmobile. They're fine. It's still working. And, Mom, honestly, I think that Gabe is going to rearrest DeFeo. I don't think there's any question," Bobby said.

Brian Williamson came over to them. "Bobby, get that wet coat off. Come on, everybody. These two need to be warmed up."

Mary jumped to at her husband's words, smiling as she hurried for her coat to put on Cindy until she could warm up. Bobby felt himself divested of his wet snow gear and bundled into an oversize coat.

"My G.o.d," Stacy said, hurrying to the window. "Where are they? Where are they?"

Cindy walked over to Stacy, touching her gently on the shoulder. "Mom...I mean, Stacy, I'm so sorry. Shayne should never have been out. I don't know how he knew to come looking. I just can't believe that he did..."

Stacy turned to look at her. She reached out and drew her into a big hug.

"It's not your fault! It's not your fault at all for wanting to be with your family at Christmas. And you call me Mom forever, no matter what you two do in the future, do you hear me?" Stacy demanded.

Cindy nodded, tears in her eyes.

Mike walked up behind her, pulling her from his wife and into his arms.

"We are always happy to see you, Cindy," he told her. "Listen to your old dad."

Cindy started to cry.

Bobby felt tears welling in his own eyes.

"Now is the time for Irish coffee!" Mac boomed out. "Stacy MacDougal, come back here and help me. Those children need something warm in their bodies!"

"Yes, yes, of course," Stacy said. "And we'll need to make two extra, because Shayne and Morwenna will be back any minute."

She walked around the bar to busy herself helping Mac.

The Williamson family stood near the window, watching, offering silent support.

Genevieve and Connor clung to their mother.

Bobby sat back in a booth, his leg up. His mother brought him the first steaming Irish coffee. He smiled at her. He sipped it. "They'll be here," he said firmly. He pointed at the star at the top of the Christmas tree. "It will lead them home, you'll see. The electricity miraculously came back on at the right time to see to it that the star leads them back. It brought Cindy and me in."

Stacy nodded. "Yes, yes, it did."

Bobby perked up suddenly. "Listen! Listen, I can hear the motor," he said.

"They're coming!" Adam Williamson said from the window. "They're coming!"

Stacy stood by Bobby, closing her eyes in grat.i.tude. She looked at Bobby. "It's a beautiful sound right now."

Shayne slipped his arm around Morwenna as she crawled off the back of the snowmobile. She hadn't realized it, but her cheeks frozen on her face-and her "cheeks" were frozen elsewhere, as well. Without Shayne's arm around her, she might have stumbled.

The door to the tavern burst open.

Her mother and father came running out, heedless of the cold, hugging them both and urging them into the warmth.

Morwenna felt like a star, friends and family everywhere, helping her off with the wet and on with dry, a sweater and a scarf someone had once left behind, and held in the tavern's back room in hopes the owner would return for it. Her mother held her hands in her own, rubbing them and warming them. Hot, stiff coffee was set before her, and her father listened while Shayne explained where they had searched, and that they hadn't found anything.

She tried not to cry.

She couldn't believe that Gabe Lange had been in their lives so briefly, and that she felt as bereft as she did. She wanted to pray that he was alive and was so afraid he couldn't possibly be.

She was vaguely aware of everyone talking as she sipped her laced coffee.

"DeFeo could still be out there," Mike said.

"You enjoy your family," Brian Williamson told him. "I've got the shotgun, and I'll be watching the front."

"And no one is coming in the back," Mac a.s.sured him. "Windows and doors are bolted."

"He's not coming back," Morwenna said. "Not unless...not unless Gabe is dead," she whispered.

"Gabe isn't dead!" Genevieve announced fiercely.

"Of course not," Morwenna said. She tried to smile at her niece. But Genevieve wasn't worried.

She was trying to rea.s.sure her aunt.

"Gabe isn't dead," she repeated. "He's going to find us all again." She pointed at the star. "He'll see it, too!"

"You're absolutely right," she told Genevieve.

She wished she believed it.

She leaned back again, taking a long swallow of the coffee brew. It was good. The alcohol warmed her to the core. It seemed impossible, but she was warm again. She closed her eyes, and she listened to those around her.

She could hear Bobby and her father talking.

"I'm hoping for Juilliard, Dad," Bobby said. "I'm really hoping. And I will work my way through it. I wouldn't drop out, I swear."

"Son, not that I don't have faith in you-I do," Mike said. "But-here's the thing. If it isn't Juilliard, we'll search. We'll search until we find the right school. There's Ball State University of Music. There's Harvard. And, son, you will get into one of them," he said firmly.

"Thanks, Dad," Bobby said softly.

She opened one eye, and was glad to see them at the next booth, heads together, close.

She turned her head around a little, and there was Shayne.

With his family.

He was seated next to Cindy. They were close. The kids were on top of both of them; Shayne held his son in his lap while Cindy held her daughter. It was such a perfect picture.

She didn't know if they actually would get back together. But whether they did or not, they would always share a very special bond now, she thought. And the fighting would all be over.

She closed her eyes again. She smiled. It was good. And yet...

Her heart ached.

Morwenna looked at the TV to distract herself. The television was still snowy, but a picture was starting to show.

A newscaster stood on a roadway. Morwenna could see the buildings around her and she recognized the little town just at the base of the mountain. The reporter was standing just outside the police station.

"Police have recaptured escaped white-collar criminal Luke DeFeo," she said, her voice cheerful. "DeFeo managed to escape during a prisoner transfer yesterday, midday. It's Christmas for the cops, too! The con walked right into the police station, half-delirious, and gave himself up. One of the state's finest, Detective Gabriel Lange, had been in hot pursuit-we have no information as to Lange's whereabouts, but rescue crews are out now, searching for him. In other news, despite the snowstorm, electricity is being restored to about five thousand homes, and in all, it looks like a white and merry Christmas. Over to you, now, Walter!"

"How the heck did the man get down the mountain so fast?" Mac asked incredulously.

"Really, that's just about impossible," Mike said.

"You think they got the right man?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah, they flashed his picture up there in the corner, didn't you see it?" Mac asked.

"Maybe he fell down half of it," Stacy suggested.

"Well, they have him, and that's that," Bobby said. He limped over to Morwenna and slid into the booth next to her. "Gabe is going to be all right, too, then."

"Sounds odd, doesn't it, Bobby?" she asked.

"What's that?"

"DeFeo handed himself in," Morwenna said.

"He handed himself in. That really doesn't sound like the guy who was fighting Gabe on the mountain."

"But it was him, Morwenna. And," he said, offering her a smile, "they will find Gabe. And he'll be all right."

She smiled, squeezed his hand and leaned her head back again. She fingered the little angel on her chain.

But it was bitterly cold out. He was on a mountain. He could have fallen. He could be somewhere with his leg broken, or worse.

"Morwenna," Bobby said gently.

She opened her eyes.

"They have helicopters, they have search dogs, they know what they're doing," he said.

She nodded again.

Something seemed to flash before her eyes. She turned. The star on the top of the tavern tree seemed to be glowing more brightly.

Electrical surge! she thought.

"Bobby, let's see that leg. Mac will have something. You've got bruised muscles or torn ligaments, baby bro. I need to get you wrapped up," Shayne said, coming over to a.s.sist Bobby.

"Yes, sir," Bobby said.

He kissed his sister's forehead, and went to Shayne to have the damage a.s.sessed.

Genevieve came over to her. She looked at Morwenna solemnly. "Gabe is going to be okay. I know it, Auntie Wenna."

She put her arm around the little girl, pulling her closer.

"I'm sure he is. He was telling me a little story about the angels getting feisty at Christmas. And there's a fallen angel, you know."

"Lucifer," Connor said.